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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28819788">Pavane pour une infante défunte (Maurice Ravel)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apsacta/pseuds/Apsacta'>Apsacta</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Twosetviolin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Don't mind the title, M/M, Sometimes things don't work out, i needed something so i just picked that, no one actually dies, probably not a happy ending, the crow thing without the nightmare bits</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:14:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,387</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28819788</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apsacta/pseuds/Apsacta</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They meet for the first time when Eddy is thirteen.<br/>
His name is Brett and he’s just one year older than Eddy. He does this thing with his mouth when he’s amused, curls it up a little, from the corner upwards, and his eye crinkles at the corner. He’s amused with Eddy a lot.</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>They meet for the first time when Brett is fourteen.<br/>
His name is Eddy, and he’s just one year younger than Brett. He does that thing with his finger when he’s nervous, bites it between his teeth, always the same side, bites at the nail or at the skin. He’s nervous a lot, not just around Brett.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eddy Chen/Brett Yang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>53</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Brett</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello. The title doesn't have much to do with this thing. It's a nice piece. I like it a lot. </p><p>Yes, it's the story of the crow thing, without the weird crow parts. My mind runs in circles sometimes.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <span>They meet for the first time when Eddy is thirteen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thinks him younger, from afar, smaller than him by a few inches. Eddy spots him from across the square. Maybe it’s the way he walks, with a bounce in his step, something of a carefree attitude, an openness that Eddy doesn’t know. He turns his head quickly – his mother’s saying something about Eddy needing new shoes, his sister’s talking about winter coats. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he looks again, the boy is standing under the old Aleppo pine, petting a stray dog before he opens a violin case. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddy watches, then, with interest. He’s played the violin since he was six, hasn’t met someone his age at his level yet. He’s curious what the boy will play. A folk song, maybe. Something traditional. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He plays one of Sarasate’s Spanish dances, draws Eddy in like a spell.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks up at the sound of Eddy’s footsteps, but doesn’t stop. He smiles a little, raises his eyebrows, and points his chin at the case at his feet. There’s a couple of coins in there, nothing else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddy almost runs away, ears burning. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s there again, sometimes, and Eddy’s afraid that he’s a better musician than him. There’s something in his playing that Eddy doesn’t have, and he can’t figure out what it is. He’s jealous, a bit. And curious, a lot. Eddy spies from afar, too embarrassed for anything else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His name is Brett and he’s just one year older than Eddy. He does this thing with his mouth when he’s amused, curls it up a little, from the corner upwards, and his eye crinkles at the corner. He’s amused with Eddy a lot. The first time they talk, he tells Eddy ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>you look like a puppy’</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and he laughs when Eddy lets out an offended groan. Then he tells Eddy that if he’s going to come and listen to him play all the time, he really should give him money. Eddy empties his pockets into the violin case when he leaves, and Brett says, ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>come play with me, next time’, </span>
  </em>
  <span>but by the time Eddy actually does it, he’s fifteen and he’s already given Brett most of his pocket money. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brett talks a lot more than Eddy. He’s a lot better at it, too. Where Eddy fumbles and stutters and sounds stupid, Brett weasels his way out of any situation with an ease that seems almost supernatural. He talks at Eddy first, before he talks to him, when Eddy’s too weird to hold a proper conversation, random, but he doesn’t seem to mind and Eddy doesn’t either. He tells Eddy about all the stray dogs in town, what they’re called and what they’re like, and Eddy doesn’t tell him that he’s allergic to pets. He tells Eddy about stuff his friends do and things he’s seen in town, people’s lives that he gathered from their interactions, who’s feuding with whom, who’s cheating and who’s unhappy, tells him that he loves music and hates maths, and that he’d be into sports if he wasn’t afraid for his fingers, and Eddy doesn’t tell him that he doesn’t like exercise and doesn’t understand people like that and that he’s being tutored in maths because that’s what good boys do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddy loves him, in a weird and convoluted way, tinged with envy and admiration and something that hurts inside his chest when he watches him go. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They spend the summers together, when the heat doesn’t die out even at night and presses down their chests and burns their foreheads, and they do nothing. It’s too hot to play music and they watch the tiny lizards shooting out of the cracks on the walls and the dogs wandering around, whining for shade, panting until Brett gets them water in his cupped hands. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddy opens up, and Brett plucks information out of him like he plucks at leaves on trees and blades of grass when they walk outside in the spring, and Eddy barely knows anything about him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s different around Eddy’s parents, and Eddy doesn’t understand how he does it. He’s charming, easy, and polite, when Eddy knows him blunt and crude. He’s helpful and well-behaved, and sets the table when he’s staying for dinner, and agrees with Eddy’s father and smiles at his mother. He crashes on Eddy’s bed when they’re alone in his room and refuses to move, and borrows Eddy’s books and never brings them back, and teases him for being too prissy, and tells jokes that make Eddy blush despite himself. He pinches Eddy’s sides, and messes up his hair when he needs it nice, and one day he grabs Eddy by the chin and kisses him on the mouth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brett’s better than Eddy at violin, and life, and being himself in general, but not at focusing on one thing at the time, and he gets distracted and he always seems like he’s got a million things on his mind at the same time, and Eddy would like for him to settle down and listen but he’s too afraid to ask, and he goes to sleep with the memory of that one time sticky in his brain. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He goes on to study music and Eddy could easily have predicted it from the start, from the moment that they met, when he played Sarasate and Eddy found himself stupid and small and jealous. He tells Eddy to do the same, ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>come with me, come on’</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and doesn’t understand when Eddy says that he’s promised his parents to get a good job and make money.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He laughs at Eddy’s hands when they get restless without anything to hold, and he pats him on the head, and tells him that it’s fine, that he’s a good kid, but he smiles at Eddy the way he smiles at others sometimes, at girls handing him his money back in shops and at waiters bringing him his drink at the bar on the corner of the street, just across the market, and Eddy goes to bed and he can’t sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When summer ends they play outside again, together. But it’s different, and when Eddy looks to his side Brett looks away, and they mess up their duets, and Eddy can tell that Brett is disappointed even though he doesn’t say anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He says ‘it’s fine’, and ‘it was fun’, and Eddy can hear that he doesn’t mean it and it hurts. He cringes at Eddy’s posture when they’re playing alone in the living room, and touches the pads of Eddy’s fingers when they meet outside, when Eddy’s waiting for him to come out of lectures, and he tells Eddy that he’s just checking if he’s still practicing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddy watches him all the time to see if university changes him, to see if he stops petting the dogs in the streets, or if he plays Sarasate differently, if he ceases to guess at people’s lives in the street, or smiles differently at pretty girls, or doesn’t whisper inappropriate jokes in Eddy’s ear in public, but he doesn’t do anything differently. Brett doesn’t change and Eddy yearns for something and he doesn’t know what. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you want?” he asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you looking at?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brett catches Eddy every time and teases him with a smile, smug and proud, and Eddy gasps like a fish out of water.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He smiles at others and looks at Eddy from the corner of his eye, questions him silently, </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘what are you watching?’, ‘why are you watching?’, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and Eddy doesn’t know, looks away ashamed, but Brett won’t let him get away with it, won’t grant him that little bit of peace. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re always so scared,” he corners Eddy one day, when his mother is in the other room and Eddy’s heart feels like a flutter in his chest, but Brett insists, smiles when he shakes his head. “Jealous,” he whispers against Eddy’s ear, “admit it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He chuckles when Eddy presses their lips together, harsh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not like that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You need to take your time,” he tells Eddy when he’s rushing on the violin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You need to take your time,” he tells Eddy when Eddy’s failing to learn a new piece.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You need to take your time,” he tells Eddy when he kisses him, a flutter so light that Eddy barely feels it, bottom lip catching between Eddy’s, slow and soft. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It seems like everything else in the house is coming alive, noises in every room. There’s a door creaking upstairs, and Eddy’s sister is coming out of her room and down the stairs, step by step, and his mother moves in the kitchen, a shuffle and a commotion and a hand on the handle of the door already, and his father is coming home, keys in the lock and shoes at the door and coughing in the entrance.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We can’t do this,” Eddy says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He closes his eyes when he kisses Eddy, all the time, dragged in corners and pressed against walls, just out of sight, with the adrenaline of people nearby coursing through their veins and the buzz of being almost found out in whispered conversations.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He closes his eyes when he kisses Eddy, fluttering eyelashes behind his glasses, but Eddy doesn’t, eyes filled with him, with wanting to commit every detail of his face to memory.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop staring, it’s creepy.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s everything in the way that the sun is everything, and the air is everything, and Eddy could never live without air or without light or without him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s the stray dogs in the streets, and the shade of the old pines, and the walls of a town that Eddy won’t ever leave. He’s the heat of a summer that sticks to his skin, and the leaves on the trees in the spring, methodically shredded by slender fingers, and the dark sky in winter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s a tease and Eddy’s helpless, clay under his fingers, moulded into pretty things or compacted into formless shapes at his will. He makes a game of it, how his fingers creep up Eddy’s thigh under the table when they eat, how he looks at him from across the room, something in his eyes, not even hidden, how he plays for him and not with him, and how everyone can tell.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell them,” he says, “I don’t care.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pushes Eddy around corners, and presses him into walls, and kisses him with one hand on his chest and the other on his face, and he takes and he takes, and laughs when Eddy’s scared that everyone will know, the way they look, eyes on them and whispers and knowing smirks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell them,” he says, “I don’t care.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He doesn’t care but Eddy does. He’s promised things, to be good and to do well and to continue the line as it’s traced, and he can’t go back, but Brett doesn’t know, doesn’t understand what promises mean.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell them,” he says when he pushes Eddy down to come over him and bite at his throat, when the door is open and anyone could see, when Eddy’s mother is in the room directly under them, and Eddy’s father is just down the street, when the windows are open and the air carries the sound.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell them,” he says, “say it, say you love me, you love me and you’ll be mine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He plays the violin, like Eddy, who’s played since he was six and has now met someone his age who’s better than him. He plays Sarasate and Wienawsky like Eddy’s never heard them before, and Eddy feels small and envious and jealous.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He plays music on the streets sometimes, for fun, and he starts by taking Eddy’s money, shiny coins dumped onto the faded velvet of an old violin case, and then he takes everything else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He plays the violin, and Eddy’s always known that he was going to be a musician, and that he was going to be great at it, and he’s better than Eddy by a mile, but he doesn’t hold it against him. He says ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>play with me, next time’</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>follow me</span>
  </em>
  <span>’, and ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>it was fun’, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>take your time’</span>
  </em>
  <span> when Eddy can’t follow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He plays Tchaikovsky and Massenet and Vieuxtemps and Kreisler.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He plays for Eddy and everyone knows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” he answers when Eddy says “You’ll leave me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because that’s what people do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pets stray dogs in the streets and gives them water in his cupped hands in the summer. He names every one of them and knows them better than anyone, and Eddy wonders if he’s a stray dog too.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He watches people live and dissects their existences, knows who’s arguing with their neighbours and who’s having affairs and who’s born and who’s died, and Eddy wonders if he’s just another piece in the puzzle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sits with Eddy in the summer heat and watches lizards on the walls and cats on the roofs, and forgets what he’s saying when he gets distracted, and Eddy wonders if he’s going to be forgotten too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s polite and nice to others, but with Eddy he’s blunt and crude, and he teases and laughs and makes him blush more than Eddy likes.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He loves music more than anything else, and maybe Eddy a little bit too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He kisses Eddy all the time and tells him to stop caring, and to stop being scared, and one day he says,</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m leaving.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>* </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The day before he goes, he brings Eddy to his house and opens a bottle of wine that neither of them drink. It’s dark outside, and dark inside, and there’s not a sound until Brett says,</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ll be alright, hey.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a lie so Eddy says nothing but something creeps under his skin and bites inside his chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ll be alright, hey, find yourself a nice girl and have a couple of kids, be the good son.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It twitches at the corner of Eddy’s mouth and under his eyelid, and inside his mouth with words that won’t come out. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I love you, I love you and I’ll be yours.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Be the good son, like you’re so desperate to be,” he goes on, and he pours more wine in his already filled glass and doesn’t drink it. “No dishonour on your family.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It crawls under Eddy’s skin like cockroaches, and he turns his head so Brett won’t see.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are you looking away? It’s true, right? It’s what you’ll do, in the end? Be the good son, hey, always... You’re crying? Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He says it as if he’s surprised but he isn’t, it’s a lie, so Eddy says nothing until it crawls outside his chest through his mouth, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>I really thought you knew me better than this</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” and Brett reaches out and closes his fingers around Eddy’s chin, and wine spills on the table and he says,</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know you better than this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And he kisses Eddy in the dark, and then takes him to his room to forage inside his chest with his fingers and his tongue and his teeth until he finds his heart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>*</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He plays the violin better than Eddy ever will, and names stray dogs before he pets them, and knows how to charm people with a smile, and kisses Eddy in the dark, and his shoulders tremble when he thinks that Eddy’s asleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He touches Eddy with careful fingers and he’s silent when he cries, and he doesn’t know that Eddy’s only pretending to sleep, and so he says, ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>I’ll come back, I promise.’</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>But it’s a lie so Eddy says nothing while something creeps under his skin and bites inside his chest.</span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Eddy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>They meet for the first time when Brett is fourteen.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s taller than Brett already, just a little, and he’ll keep growing, but he looks like a child from up close, with the way his eyes widen and his lips curl into a pout. He’s taller but he seems small. Maybe it’s in the way he walks, shy and indecisive, like he’s not quite sure he’s welcome.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brett plays the violin on the square sometimes, gets a few coins that way, enough for a drink or a snack. It’s good practice and it’s fun. He likes to play shiny and impressive, make people stop in their tracks, and one day the boy comes to him, hesitant footsteps and eyes averted. He loiters around like he’s not really paying attention but Brett knows he’s listening. Brett hears him coming but waits till he stops to look up and his bow almost skids from eyes too bright.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The boy runs away when Brett points at his open case, at the coins sprinkled in there, and his footsteps break up the piece that Brett is playing, dissonant.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s there again, all the time, he hides around corners and pretends to look at store windows, and Brett wants to laugh because he’s not remotely inconspicuous. Brett spots him every time, makes a game of it, looks for him in the crowd and gives himself a point when he sees him, and tries to guess at which pieces will make him come closer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His name is Eddy, and he’s just one year younger than Brett. He does that thing with his finger when he’s nervous, bites it between his teeth, always the same side, bites at the nail or at the skin, like he’s not even aware of what he’s doing. He’s nervous a lot, not just around Brett. The first time they talk, Brett thinks that he looks like a puppy, all lost and clumsy, and Brett laughs when he’s offended. Brett can tell he plays the violin too just by the way he listens, but still feels proud when Eddy confirms. Brett wants to play with him to see if he’s any good, says ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>give money if you’ll listen all the time, or come and play with me’, </span>
  </em>
  <span>in the hopes that he’ll agree, but Eddy’s weird, and Brett is sixteen by the time Eddy eventually does it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eddy’s quiet, better than Brett at standing still, doesn’t need to fill every silence with words. He’d rather be forgotten than have to get out of trouble by talking, and he takes everything in way better than Brett ever will. He doesn’t have much to say so Brett talks for two, can’t stop the words out of weird fear that Eddy’ll walk away if he stays quiet for too long, but it’s all good. Brett will tell him a-thousand-and-one stories to make him stay, tell him about the stray dogs, and stuff he’s seen in town, and his friends, and what he sees from people in the street, tell him about music and things he likes and things he hates, and everything else in between. He talks and talks, and as long as he keeps talking Eddy keeps looking at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>His name is Eddy, not Edward, or Edwin, just Eddy. Eddy with a y, and Brett wants him so much that it hurts at the tip of his fingers like forty years of practice or badly done pizz.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They spend the summers together, when the heat doesn’t die out even at night and presses down their chests, and burns their foreheads, and they do nothing. It’s too hot to play music and they watch the tiny lizards shooting out of the cracks on the walls, and the dogs wandering around, whining for shade, and Brett gets them water in his cupped hands, and it makes Eddy smile.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It takes a while for Eddy to share, but when he does Brett listens, and he tries to remember everything. It’s important.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eddy tries to be good, respectful and obedient. He’ll do anything his parents want, and he’s afraid of what people think of him, but Brett can tell that inside he’d like something else. He’s awkward around people, and doesn’t think he’s good enough, and twists himself into knots to be someone that he’s not. He doesn’t practice what he preaches and laughs at Brett’s dirty jokes, and judges people more than Brett ever will, if he’s not good then they aren’t either, and then he regrets everything and beats himself over every mistake. He’ll cry at limping dogs, and sad stories, and won’t let Brett disturb the lizards sunbathing on the walls, and he’ll wish himself better when he is good already. He’s clever and thoughtful, and he looks at Brett like Brett wants to be looked at, so one day Brett grabs him by the chin and kisses him on the mouth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He plays violin with a dedication that borders on insincerity sometimes, and he’s worse than Brett at people but he’s good at ideas, can stay focused when Brett gets distracted by dogs, or cats, or his own thoughts. He won’t be moved from the path that he’s on, planned before him, and he’s so determined that Brett would like for him to take a moment to settle down but he’s too embarrassed to ask, and Brett thinks he’ll wait forever for Eddy to take a step towards him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brett goes on to study music because it’s the only thing that has ever made sense in his life, and it’s the only thing he’s ever been good at, the only way to go, the only path forward, and he would like Eddy to follow him, like he does in the streets and on the square, and when they play music together, but he knows Eddy won’t because he’s expected to do something else, and Eddy doesn’t want to disappoint anyone except Brett.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He knows Eddy’s not his to have and it’s fine, and he tries to smile at others the way he smiles at Eddy, girls handing him his money back in shops and waiters bringing him his drink at the bar on the corner of the street, just across the market, but it’s not their eyes he sees when he’s asleep.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When summer ends they play outside again, together. But it’s different, and when Eddy looks at him Brett looks away, and they mess up their duets, and Brett can tell that Eddy is disappointed even though he doesn’t say anything.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brett says ‘it’s fine’, and ‘it was fun’, and he can see that Eddy doesn’t think the same and it hurts. He looks at Eddy, and mocks his posture when they’re playing alone in the living room, and touches the pads of his fingers just to know the feel of his skin, and when Eddy asks him why, he tells him that he’s just checking if Eddy’s still practicing.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He watches Eddy all the time to see if he likes him less, if he’s less sensitive or freer or less clever, but Eddy remains Eddy, with his eyes still too bright and his mouth still too red and his chest still shaking with a breath that Brett wants to steal. Eddy doesn’t change and Brett wants him so much that he feels it in his bones and in his teeth, like they’re shattering from inside.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brett catches Eddy looking sometimes, and he hopes and he hopes, and teases him with a smile, proud and smug because Eddy’s eyes are on him like they’re not on anyone else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do you want?” he asks, “what are you looking at?” and Eddy gasps like a fish out of water.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He smiles at others and looks at Eddy from the corner of his eye, and he has a million questions that he wants answers to. </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘What are you watching?’, ‘why are you watching?’, ‘what do you want from me?’</span>
  </em>
  <span> and Eddy looks away like he’s ashamed, but Brett won’t let him get away with it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re always so scared,” he corners Eddy one day, and he doesn’t care that Eddy’s mother is in the other room because Eddy’s watching and Brett’s hoping, so he insists, smiles when Eddy shakes his head, because he hopes. “Jealous,” he whispers against Eddy’s ear, “admit it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He chuckles when Eddy presses their lips together, harsh, like he’s unsure still, but Brett isn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You need to take your time,” he tells Eddy when he’s rushing on the violin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You need to take your time,” he tells Eddy when Eddy’s failing to learn a new piece.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You need to take your time,” he tells Eddy when he kisses him, catching Eddy’s lips, light and slow and soft because he’s afraid to scare him away. He’d eat him if he could.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eddy trembles and shivers and his eyes are nervous, and his pulse is faster under Brett’s fingertips, and he hears noises when Brett doesn’t. He’s afraid that someone will see, that they’ll get caught, and Brett couldn’t care less. He wants his mouth and his lips and every breath that will ever pass between them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We can’t do this,” Eddy says.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why?” Brett asks, but Eddy pulls away before his mother gets into the room, and he doesn’t look at Brett anymore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eddy’s weird and he keeps his eyes open when they kiss, all the time, dragged in corners and pressed against walls, just out of sight, with the adrenaline of people nearby coursing through their veins and the buzz of being almost found out in whispered conversations.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He keeps his eyes open when they kiss, wide and shiny, pretty under his eyelashes, and he looks at Brett like he wants to commit every detail of his face to memory.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Stop staring, it’s creepy,” Brett says, but he’d keep kissing Eddy, with his eyes closed or wide open, it doesn’t matter.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s the only thing that keeps Brett back, holds him behind when the music calls him away and he wants to see more than the stray dogs in the streets and the shade of the old pines and the walls of a town that he’s desperate to leave. He’s the only thing that keeps Brett there and Brett thinks he won’t go anywhere without him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s the pulse of a piece and the silence between the notes and the rhythm behind everything, more music than the sounds of Brett’s violin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t know it but he belongs to Brett, everything from his skin to his teeth to the flesh sticking to his bones, and Brett wants his mouth to take the shape of his lips and his limbs to bear the mark of his hands. He likes it when Eddy squirms under his fingers, the shivers on his skin and the twitching of his mouth, and he’d like for everyone to know. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tell them,” Brett says, “I don’t care.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wants everything, Eddy pressed into walls and pushed around corners, the warmth of his mouth, the beating of his heart under Brett’s palm and the skin of his cheeks, and his lips and his teeth and his tongue. Eddy’s scared of people seeing and knowing, and Brett laughs because he doesn’t care and he wants Eddy all the same, in the dark or in the light, his skin and his teeth and the flesh around his bones. Eddy belongs to him and he’d like everyone to know.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tell them,” he says, “I don’t care.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eddy cares so much, and Brett wants to pry it out of his brain, the promises he’s made to his parents and his family and himself, extract everything with his fingers until there’s nothing left but Eddy. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tell them,” he says when he pushes Eddy down to come over him and bite at his throat, feel the skin under his teeth. Brett wants Eddy to think about him when he’s not there, fingers grazing at the traces he’s left, wants Eddy to wake up with him and go to sleep with him and never think about anyone else.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Tell them,” Brett says, “say it, say you love me, you love me and you’ll be mine.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He plays the violin, like Brett, who’s played since he was five and has never wanted anything else but music in his life until he met him. He plays whatever piece Brett chooses, because he’s Brett’s, and Brett feels happy and proud and a little bit jealous.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He listens to Brett more than he plays, though, and he starts by giving him money, shiny coins tumbling from pretty fingers inside his violin case, but he won’t give him everything else. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He plays the violin, like Brett, but Brett’s known for a while that Eddy won’t choose music, and that he won’t follow him, and that he’ll do what he’s expected to do one day, and that he won’t play with him for much longer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Brett plays Tchaikovsky, and Massenet, and Vieuxtemps, and Kreisler, just for him, and he hopes that Eddy knows.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” he answers when Eddy says “You’ll leave me.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And when Eddy asks why he says,</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Because that’s what people do.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s soft, and awkward, and a little bit shy. He cries at injured birds and limping dogs, and he holds a thousand-and-one things inside his chest that Brett wants to come out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s judging and harsh, and unforgiving, mostly with himself, and he’s bad with people, even with Brett sometimes, he won’t say what he wants or what he thinks, and Brett doesn’t know how to tell him things.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He sits with Brett in the summer heat, and watches lizards on the walls, and cats on the roofs, and he won’t let Brett hold his hand in public, and Brett fears that he’ll get tired of this sometime.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s uncertain of what he wants to be and he needs validation like Brett needs music, something he can’t live without and won’t ever get tired of. He doesn’t need Brett like that.  </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He likes Brett a lot but he likes his family more, and the version of himself that he’s created in his head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He lets Brett kiss him when no one knows but he still cares about what others think, and he can’t stop being scared, and one day music wins and Brett says,</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m leaving.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The day before he goes, he brings Eddy to his house and opens a bottle of wine that neither of them drink. It’s dark outside, and dark inside, and there’s not a sound until Brett says,</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ll be alright, hey.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He looks at Brett, but says nothing, and Brett wants to shake him by the shoulders and dig his nails under his skin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’ll be alright, hey, find yourself a nice girl and have a couple of kids, be the good son.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It twitches under Brett’s skin as he says it, bitter, bitter taste inside his mouth, because it’s true, even though Eddy belongs to him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Be the good son, like you’re so desperate to be,” he goes on, and he pours more wine in his already filled glass and doesn’t drink it. “No dishonour on your family.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It crawls out of Brett’s mouth like spiders, and he wants Eddy to say it, say that he would never follow even if Brett asked, but Eddy looks away again like he’s ashamed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Why are you looking away? It’s true, right? It’s what you’ll do, in the end? Be the good son, hey, always... You’re crying? Why?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s soft and shy and he cries at nothing, and he looks at Brett like he doesn’t know that Brett is telling the truth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I really thought you knew me better than this,” he says, pitiful.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And Brett reaches out and closes his fingers around Eddy’s chin, and wine spills on the table and he says,</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I know you better than this.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And he does, so he kisses Eddy in the dark, and then he takes him to his bed because he belongs to him, everything from his skin, to his flesh and his bones.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>*</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He plays the violin even when he’s given up on music, and cries at sad stories and injured pets, and is too awkward around people, and kisses with his eyes open, and for a very short time he belonged to Brett, fingers and mouth and eyes, and the thoughts in his head and the beat of his heart. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He’s not Brett’s but Brett still wants him so much that it hurts inside his chest and at the corner of his mouth and behind his eyeballs, and so he says, ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>I’ll come back, I promise.’</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But Eddy’s asleep so he doesn’t reply, and it wouldn’t change anything anyway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading. Have a good week.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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